Rochelle Riley: Wright museum gets $1M from Kellogg foundation

June 10, 2014

Hundreds of Detroit residents and guest await to enter the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History during the final 2013 Detroit Mayoral Debate hosted by WADL Detroit in Detroit on Tuesday, July 30, 2013. The final debate featured the top six candidates including Tom Barrow, Krystal Crittendon, Mike Duggan, Fred Durhal, Lisa Howze and Benny Napolean. Jarrad Henderson/Detroit Free Press / Jarrad Henderson

The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History has received a $1-million donation from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation as well as a $100,000 donation from a prominent Birmingham businessman, the Free Press has learned.

Kellogg President and CEO La June Montgomery Tabron said Monday that the foundation awarded the million-dollar grant “to help the organization grow and become even more effective and imbedded into the community.”

“A lot of foundations give money for programs, and that’s fine,” she said. “But there are certain organizations that, because we believe in their value in the community, sometimes need general support that allows them to pursue their missions with a little less burden of continuous fund-raising.”

And the businessman, Jon Barfield, said he was moved by A. Paul Schaap’s donation of $5 million to help the Detroit Institute of Arts’ collections and city retirees’ pensions.

The Schaap donation led to millions of dollars in subsequent gifts from individuals and foundations — and, on Monday, the auto industry — in what has become the equivalent of $816 million over 20 years for a grand bargain making the DIA an independent entity and helping pensioners.

Barfield wants a grand bargain for the Wright.

“I think we can best make our case to the foundations and the state if we step up and help ourselves,” Barfield, a Wright board member and CEO of LJ Holdings Investment, said Monday. “Hopefully this will provide a spark for additional significant support, and then we can go to the foundations and go to Gov. (Rick) Snyder and say this museum deserves to be saved. We want to go from hand-to-mouth culture to the point where we sustain the museum.”

That hand-to-mouth culture has led to the museum to the brink of death more than once. The city funded 75% of the museum’s construction costs in 1997 and pledged to pay half its operating costs every year. But the city never met that pledge. Its contribution was 48% in 2010 and fell to 21% this year.

The museum’s current budget is $4.7 million, which is half of what museum officials say is needed. The museum is now operating at a $200,000 deficit, said President and CEO Juanita Moore.The financial woes have resulted in “layoffs and a dwindling number of programs for our children,” Barfield said.

The museum has seen a surge in donations since a Free Press report in January, but officials want to raise enough money not to seek grants regularly to survive.

That is Barfield’s hope.

“I consider the Charles Wright Museum to be a part of the cultural global solution for the city of Detroit, to not just be saved, but to prosper and grow,” said Barfield, who grew up in Ypsilanti and is retired chairman, president and chief executive of the Bartech Group, one of the largest independent professional services and management companies in the country.

“Do you recall the gentleman in Grosse Pointe?” Barfield said, referring to Schaap. “It occurred to me that if I were to do what he did, it might provide a little bit of a spark in the community for others who have the capacity to do more to support the museum. That’s why I did it.”

Changing the way the museum raises funds is music to the ears of Moore, CEO of the Wright, who called Barfield’s gift “significant and a signal to other people to encourage them to give.”

“We hope that will unite others to step up and give major gifts,” she said.

Moore said Barfield’s contribution was the second $100,000 gift after a private one given earlier by Howard Sims, the architect who designed the museum.

She declined to say how much money the museum has raised since revealing that it did not have enough money to sustain itself. But the staff continues to apply for grants and is hard at work on the annual Wright Gala, its largest fund-raiser, which is scheduled for September. The gala celebrates a different exhibit every year, and this year honors the black theater costumes exhibit that opens in July.

The museum also is pushing its “Give a Grand, Make a Million” campaign that encourages supporters across the state to give $1,000 gifts to the museum.

As museum staff and supporters work to save the Wright, Barfield recalled a moment that made his gift easy to make.

“I’ve dedicated the latter part of my life to increased philanthropy and being more active in the community … and I love giving back to the museum and to institutions that need our support,” he said. “Sometimes when I come to board meetings, particularly in winter and you walk through the multipurpose room, sometimes, it is full of young black children and teachers who have come there out of the cold, and sometimes I’m moved to tears because the children look so engaged and so happy to have found a safe haven and a nurturing space, which is the museum.”